1. New and Improved Now Better than Ever!

2. WHY A SCAVENGER HUNT? It requires students to follow directions It requires students to follow a step- by-step procedure (you’d be surprised at the number of 9 th grade students who have trouble with that!) It is self-checking: if they come to the same station twice or have the same answer twice, they have something wrong It is EASY to grade! >

3. FILES ON THE WEB! Instead of giving you a diskette with the files already loaded – which then might or might not work on your A-drive – I have put the files and examples on my web site. The web address is: http://www.henry.k12.tn.us/teachers/claxtonm/scavhunt/shlinks.htm All you have to do is click on the file you want (15 or 25 questions) and it will either give you the option of opening it or saving it on your computer, or it will open it in your browser; you can then save the file to your hard drive. You can then make changes to the file as indicated in the rest of this presentation. >

4. WHAT’S ON THE WEB PAGE FOR YOU? Two Scavenger Hunt files: –One for a 15 question hunt: sh15blank.xls –One for a 25 question hunt: sh25blank.xls This PowerPoint presentation (complete) A PowerPoint presentation showing students how to set up their answer sheets Sample Scavenger Hunts –A 25 question one for the video “Sister Act II” –A 15 question one for U.S. Flag Etiquette >

5. REQUIREMENTS To create this scavenger hunt, you will need: –15/25 Short answer questions and answers – 5 Mystery words of 15-30 letters – 1 Clue for each mystery word – 15/25 sheets of construction paper (2 colors for odd and even numbers is good) –Glue –Microsoft Excel (in MS Office) and the Excel file for the hunt you are creating (15 or 25 question blank file) >

6. MYSTERY WORDS It is best (but not NECESSARY) to have your mystery words already done before you start typing your questions: –You will enter the clues and mystery words on the data page –Your mystery word clues will be printed at the bottom of your question sheets –It helps to have the grid with the mystery word letters filled in before you start typing your answers >

7. BLANK & SAMPLE MYSTERY WORDS GRIDS

8. MYSTERY WORDS Mystery words should be: –Something with at least 15/25 letters –Something students can know or find easily –Something that may be more than one word I use countries and their capitals which can be found using the World Almanac and Book of Facts I also included in the spreadsheets a list of the U.S. states and capitals and the number of letters in the names as an extra “sheet” in the file. >

9. MYSTERY WORDS I include the clue and a series of blanks so students know how many letters are in the words they are looking for The mystery words should be fairly easy: you are not testing students’ knowledge here, you are just checking to be sure they went through the scavenger hunt and didn’t just write down answers >

10. MYSTERY WORDS GRID So now you have your five mystery words and their clues; you are ready to make your grid –The grid is used to align your letters for ease of typing your answers into your spreadsheet –The grid has: 15/25 columns numbered 1-15/25 across the top 5 lines labeled A, B, C, D, E down the side –Write the letters of your mystery word(s) into the grid – one per space – mixing them up as you go along >

11. ORGANIZING DATA Now you are ready to enter your data into your spreadsheet. Because of the order in which the data entry form is designed, you should have the following items in this order: –15/25 Answers –5 X 15/25 Mystery letter grid –5 Mystery clues –A title for your Scavenger Hunt –5 Mystery clue answers –15/25 Questions >

12. OPENING TEMPLATE FILE Open the file you are going to use: –sh15blank.xls for the 15 question hunt –sh25blank.xls for the 25 question hunt IMMEDIATELY – go to SAVE AS under File on the top toolbar and save your file under another name. Otherwise you will save over your template file. I usually preface mine with “sh” so that all my scavenger hunt files come up together. Another “helpful hint”: save to the C drive and only use A drive as a backup when you are finished. Your file will open to the data sheet ready for you to enter data. >

13. TYPING YOUR ANSWERS The first colored cells in the middle are where you will put the answers to the questions, one answer per cell. If the answers “wrap”, it is all right, just don’t make them too long or they will cause your answer sheet to print out on more than one sheet (which is not bad, just inconvenient) The order of the answers will correspond to the order of the questions on question sheet A. ALERT! Remember to SAVE FREQUENTLY throughout this process!!!!!!! >

14. TYPING YOUR MYSTERY LETTERS Look at your grid and compare it to your spreadsheet form: –Notice that the letters go down on the grid you wrote on, but they go across on the spreadsheet... SO... –You will be reading DOWN your handwritten grid column and typing ACROSS on the spreadsheet line –If you do not have quite enough letters, you can use a dash (–) in place of a letter; be sure to remind students not to look for letters if there is a dash in the secret letter space >

15. ENTERING MYSTERY CLUES When your answers are all in, you are ready to enter the mystery clues. –Have your mystery word clues in front of you –Scroll down the entry page till you come to the colored boxes in column A, left side of the page. –You will type your mystery clue in the first cell of each colored pair of cells, and put B L A N K S (_ _ ) – one for each letter of the mystery word(s) – in the next cell; the cells will expand to accept your typing, but will print out as longer lines on the question sheet –Notice that the color of the cells correspond to the colors of the cells for the mystery letters at the top of the sheet >

16. TYPING YOUR TITLE Next you will add your title for your Scavenger Hunt. This will print out at the top of the page in the following format: YOUR TITLE – SCAVENGER HUNT A The letter at the end will change with each of the 5 question sheets (A-E) Find the cell in column A which shows where to enter your title in column C >

17. TYPING YOUR MYSTERY CLUE ANSWERS Next you will enter the answers to your mystery clues. These will not print out on any sheet; they are only there so that you do not have to REMEMBER what each answer was. (This is not to imply that any of you has a problem with remembering odd bits of information – just a “Helpful Hannah Hint” from my own experience.) >

18. TYPING YOUR QUESTIONS In the space marked QUESTIONS on the Excel spreadsheet, enter your questions, one question per line – this will be question sheet A Press enter to move to the next field after typing each question Don’t forget to SAVE, SAVE, SAVE!!! >

19. OTHER SPREADSHEET PAGES Your data is entered, so now it is time to look at the rest of the spreadsheet. Look at the bottom of the screen and you will see “tabs” labeled Ans.A-Ans.E and Qu.A- Qu.E. There is also a “Directions” tab which will be there to remind you about what I have said when I am no longer in voice range. And, finally, there is a “States&Caps” tab for the list of U.S. states and capitals and the number of letters in each set. This would be good to use – especially with lower grades – as mystery clues >

20. PRINTING YOUR HUNT Click on tab Ans. A You will see a strange series of cells blocked off into basically three columns. Each large box has: –a smaller box in the upper right corner with a “table number” in it –one of the answers you typed in the data sheet in the upper left corner –a “Go To Station Number” below the answer –the title “Secret Letter” and one of the secret letters you typed in the data sheet below the Station Number >

21. PRINTING YOUR HUNT There is one check that you will want to perform on your answer sheets: –For some reason, although “wrap text” is checked for each of the answer cells, Excel does not ALWAYS remember to expand the cell to hold all of your answer... SO... –Check each answer to be sure you see ALL the words that should be there –If you do NOT see all of the words, follow the directions on the next screen: >

22. EXPANDING ANSWER CELLS Click in the cell you need to change Click on FORMAT on the top toolbar Click on CELLS. IF CELLS is “grayed out” – meaning you can’t click on it – do the following: –Click TOOLS on the top toolbar –Click PROTECTION and then click UNPROTECT SHEET Go back to FORMAT and CELLS and click on the ALIGNMENT tab >

23. EXPANDING ANSWER CELLS If there is NO check mark in the box beside WRAP TEXT, put a check mark there and press enter If there is a check already in the box try the following: –Un-check the box and then check it again and press enter... OR... –Un-check the box, press enter, then Click FORMAT, CELLS, and ALIGNMENT and then check the WRAP TEXT box, and press enter >

24. EXPANDING ANSWER CELLS For some reason, just checking “wrap text” does not always make the cell large enough to see your complete answer. So if you still cannot see all the words in the answer, do the following: –Click in the cell you want to expand; –Click FORMAT on the top toolbar, then click ROW and then HEIGHT; –Use numbers that are multiples of 12.5 (I.e. 25 for two rows of text, 37.5 for three rows, etc.); press enter >

25. PRINTING ANSWER SHEETS Remember which answer(s) you had to change; you will probably have to change them on the other answer sheets as well. BUT – the good thing is, they will be in the same CELL on each page. Once you have all your answers visible as you want them, you are ready to print the page Clicking FILE, PRINT PREVIEW lets you check to see if it is paged like you want; then just click print >

26. PRINTING ANSWER & QUESTION SHEETS Follow the same procedure for each of the other Ans. Tabs (B-E) Set these sheets aside Click on the Qu.A tab Again check to see that all parts of each question are visible. If one does not print out properly, use the same procedure outlined earlier for the Answer sheets to wrap the text and change the row height on the question sheets as needed. >

27. PRINTING QUESTION SHEETS Check to be sure your mystery clue and blanks look like you want them to and adjust “wrap text”/“line height” if needed Again, I suggest FILE, PRINT PREVIEW to be sure it is paged to come out on one sheet; if not, you can adjust row height and/or remove rows to make it print on one page Click on tabs Qu.B-Qu.E and print each page out >

28. CONSTRUCTION PHASE When all question and answer sheets are printed out, get your construction paper –Number each piece 1-15/25 (if you use 2 colors, make one color even numbers and one color odd numbers) –Cut the answer sheets along the lines into individual answers and stack these by the table number (number in the box in the upper right corner of the answer): There should be 5 answers for each table number Be careful not to cut the secret letter off the bottom >

29. CONSTRUCTION PHASE –Now glue the 5 answers in each “table number” stack onto the corresponding numbered piece of construction paper Your scavenger hunt is now finished. I suggest laminating the answer cards (construction paper) as they get a lot of use. I have also laminated the question sheets which discourages students from writing answers on the question sheets and assures that they can be used again. >

30. IMPLEMENTATION You will have 5 groups of students (one for each question sheet). Each student in a group should have a copy of the question sheet for that group... SO... Make as many copies of the question sheets as there will be members of each group (usually about 5-6, and I make an extra one or two – somehow they still come up missing) Use the student instruction sheet in your handout to get students started to their first answer station. >

31. So now you are ready to sit back... and... Watch your students scramble for answers!